Grampa's Bakery & Restaurant--The Unexpected Visit

It seemed appropriate that the first place we hit up (after deciding to start scrapping our progress that is) just kind of fell into our laps. In May, the two of us were travelling with my family down to Key West, but had flown into Fort Lauderdale and planned on making the drive down to the keys from there. Now here's the thing, we were initially planning on making a stop at a Triple D place while we were in Miami at the end of our vacation, so there was already one place in our sights. Here's the thing though, as we were pulling out of the Fort Lauderdale airport, we passed a sign that welcomed us to the booming metropolis of Dania Beach, FL. Now we both happened to remember that Grampa's (a place we had always wanted to visit after seeing their episode) was actually in Dania Beach, but we'd had no idea we would be driving through so we never thought about visiting when we were planning our trip to Florida. So once we'd hit the road, we just told everybody to keep their eyes peeled in case we passed by, and not even five minutes later we were pulling into the parking lot. Lucky for us, Grampa's is on the main drag through Dania Beach, and easy to spot from the road. We needed to eat lunch anyway, so like Guy says--it was funky and we found out, and our Triple D adventure began.

Grampa's was established in 1957 and is known around Dania Beach as being the best bakery around. The first thing that greets you from the road is a big red and yellow sign, with a smiling baker boy looking out at you, and while the sign is a great greeting, what's even better is what welcomes you to Grampa's once you walk in the door--their bakery. Three huge display cases featuring every kind of dessert you can imagine from homemade doughnuts, to cakes, cookies, and cream puffs, and that doesn't even begin to cover the wall behind the display cases with all their homemade bagels and breads--needless to say the place smelled phenomenal. The place itself is actually huge, with tons of tables and booths, plus a small bar along the back wall. They've got two huge, signed pictures of Guy on the wall, along with articles and other places that they've been featured. They were pretty busy, but we got a table near the bar and were greeted by one of the nicest waiters we've met thus far. Randy had noticed me taking a picture of Guy's picture and filled us in on all the specials that Guy had tried, and gave us some of Grampa's history. They're kind of a local legend and proud of it that's for sure. They still use the machinery from 1957 to make their breads and aren't looking to change anything anytime soon. So let's get down to it...what'd we eat???

Featured on the "Comfort Food" episode, we knew we were in for some stick to your ribs homecooking at Grampa's. Before we even got our meals, we knew we were in for some great food, just by the homemade danish and rolls that came with our meals. Since some of us had ordered breakfast, we were given two huge plates of homemade, warm apple and peach danishes that were so soft and gooey we couldn't stop eating them. Then since we had lunch orders too, we got a basket of their baseball sized, homemade dinner rolls. Now I'm a sucker for bread, and I can honestly say this was some of the best bread I've ever tasted. They were dense but light, and of course warm. But like I said those were just the beginners of our meal. By an awesome bit of luck, we were there on a Saturday which is the day they cook up their lamb shank special that Guy raved about. I'm not a huge fan of lamb so I stayed away other than a small bite, but Ben and my brother-in-law Jon had the lamb shank, a huge helping with a side of mashed potatoes and corn, all covered in the homemade sauce that comes with it. According to the boys, it was an amazing dinner, and well worth Guy's having it on the show. The rest of us had a pretty good mix of the menu, I had their blueberry pancakes--which were pretty incredible and also featured on the episode, my sister Jennifer had the largest turkey club sandwich you've ever seen, and my Mom and other sister Kristin had the hot, open-faced turkey sandwich, and our family friend, Lisa had an omelette. But of course we couldn't leave Grampa's without sampling the bakery, and believe me I wish we were going back to Florida sometime soon just to go and get some more dessert. We covered a whole range of snacks for the drive to the Keys--cinnamon doughnuts, Queen Anne's lace, mini baklava, cream puffs, macadamia nut cookies, and cream filled doughnuts. Needless to say it was a great start to our Triple D adventures, and if you're ever rolling through Dania Beach (or the Fort Lauderdale airport) check out Grampa's--you won't regret it!!

In case you're curious here's their website too (check out the pictures of the bakery) http://www.grampasbakery.com/index.html